China, Pakistan ink $820m Thar coal agreement!

[Cyberian]

Too slow, way too slow. Despite there's no competition to Chinese companies in Pakistan, still there's next to zero progress.

I'll still give Pakistan Muslim League (N) the benefit of doubt though.

 

[Viper0011.]

Using Grade B Lignite for large-scale electricity production is simply not economically feasible compared to the alternatives available.
Oil obtained from tar sands is very different than shale oil, and both have very different processes and cost-effectiveness than coal. Your argument is simply inapplicable given the basics.

You read posts like above, and you immediately know the person has gathered knowledge from the internet

Allow me to help you with some ideas about how "cheaper and better" Shale gas is from the Coal. For a country like Pakistan, to jump start her economy, and get quick electricity, while having one of the largest Coal reserves, the Coal is the best option. Your government is already working on alternative energies (down to involving Sugar mills to produce electricity when they use Turbines to crush the Sugar cane, then there is Solar, Wind and Hydro projects already in pipes).

So in the above scenario, you aren't putting your 60% of electric production through Coal, you are just using 20-25%, which is very manageable and won't have an environmental issue like they face in China and India. For 25% of the electricity to be generated through Hydro, Wind, Solar, or Nuclear, you'll need billions of dollars and more than a few years. The cost goes significantly higher when you use Furnace oil. You already have a shortage of the Natural gas, so that's also out. Once you have engineers trained on advanced tech and the process (THE most important thing), speed to produce electricity would be much quicker than any other option. Plus, the cost would also be the cheapest.

Not to mention many millions jobs it'll create around mining, Coal transformation and refining, and then the associated expansion in the Transportation and the Rail system, all meaning millions of new jobs and new tax payers (Pakistan needs the "legal" tax payers desperately to grow her internal economy). So all these are good things.

I work with this transportation company, the CEO of this company just asked me yesterday, why the hell do we sell Oranges grown in Florida in California and bring Oranges from California to Florida (Florida is a known Orange producer). My answer to him was that they are keeping you and millions of others in the business. If they weren't transporting millions of Oranges like this, the Freight industry would have a few million LESS jobs and hundreds of thousands small trucking business won't exist. So the bottom is, you do projects that on a larger scale help the entire country's population. The more people put to work through job creation, the more families will leave poverty, can afford better homes, better education, healthcare, cars, bikes, clothes, tourism, etc, etc, helping the ENTIRE country's economy. And in this case, these millions of jobs are being created by Coal, which is a Born in Pakistan product and you don't pay a dime in foreign exchange to someone else, and its the cheapest and quickest way to get power.....so WHY NOT????

Now on Shale gas, allow me to quote some stuff from the GAO's audit report and this process's associated environmental and health hazards:

'Among the environmental concerns are that enormous amounts of water are used and the water is contaminated by the layers of earth it is pumped through as well as the fracking chemicals. The cement to protect the ground water can get leaky with time, especially if acid water is used.

Radon and mercury are gases which can leak out from the shale formation. Other subsurface materials like lead or arsenic may be mobilized. It cannot be excluded that fractures in rock formations grow in higher rock/soil formations or up to the surface. Small earthquakes, so called induced seismicity, might result from changing the balance of forces in the rock formations.

There also are the concerns regarding energy politics, fearing that the hype can change the understanding that shale gas is a transition and not a replacement fuel. Also methane, which is the main component of natural gas, is a potent greenhouse gas. It is poorly understood what impact increasing shale gas industry has on the climate. [1, 2]

Goal gasification in situ may provide a favorable solution. The heat transfer to the surface generates electricity and the carbon byproduct stays locked in the Earth’s crust away from the atmosphere. DOE’s support for the FutureGen coal plant conversion project shows that the Administration is willing to back a demonstrated carbon capture technology for the coal sector. One big potential drawback to coal gasification is the uncertain means of turning off the thermal reaction underground and the Carbon footprint, which can be minimized with newer technologies and by treating the smoke before releasing it directly into the air"

Too slow, way too slow. Despite there's no competition to Chinese companies in Pakistan, still there's next to zero progress.

I'll still give Pakistan Muslim League (N) the benefit of doubt though.

Its not the government who goes in and NS and SS implement each project, from building roads between the two, to digging water dams, airports, sea ports and power plants (funny thought though, I can imagine these two working alone digging stuff up) .

The projects are done by machines and people. People have to be qualified. What happened in the Nnadi Por project? Was the fact that the MD and many senior level officials onsite had assured the electric power management and above, that "We have very capable engineers, bring the technology and its no problem to manage it. We've been working with Tarbela for 5 decades now".

Everyone reading this knows the nonchalant behavior found in Pakistan. On any project using some engineering and scientifc process, your MAIN risk becomes the availability of well trained human resources. Pakistan doesn't have those yet. Having 20,000 engineers doesn't mean they have the experience and working knowledge to run and fix say Norenco D-230X turbines (just making up a model number as an example). Now if you are installing many D-230X turbines and Norenco people leave (Nandi Por, remember), and the machines stop.....you are looking at literally hundreds of millions worth of financial hit.

So now, the policy has changed, the Government of Pakistan has asked every single manufacture bidding on projects to include "TRAINING" for Pakistani engineers before the project goes live. That way, the maintenance of D-230X will now take place in Pakistan much faster, instead of "reading manuals of D-230X by these "master engineers" that can do anything and have been "operating" Tarbela for 5 decades (which uses German and Italian technology and from 5 decades ago, upgraded, but still older tech and the Chinese platforms are MUCH different).

So the major delay on ANY project going forward, is Pakistan's internal human resource's availability. When people are trained to handle a project, that's when something will go live. Its better to take a $ 50 million hit up front and delay the project till people are trained properly, than launch something and result in hundreds of millions of loss. You do that on 2-3 projects, that would cost over billions and will make the government look bad, and will piss off the investors.

 

[Pulsar]

Electricity production from coal sources (% of total) in India was last measured at 67.94 in 2011,

Pakistan is at 0% coal power currently.

Electricity production from coal sources (% of total) in India

Those are existing coal plants. We're now going in for nuclear and solar power in a big way. For eg, target is 120GW of solar power by 2022.

 

[Sipahi]

Those are existing coal plants. We're now going in for nuclear and solar power in a big way. For eg, target is 120GW of solar power by 2022.

Best of luck for that, however we have coal and in my opinion GoP should go for it.

 

[PakSword]

Not just coal, Pakistan should focus on different sources. Preference should be given to cheap renewable resources.

For example, KP should work on Hydro power. The government is taking good steps already.
Wind power on the shoreline
Interior Sindh and Punjab - Coal Power

 

[SHAMK9]

Rest of the world is moving on from coal and we are getting into it

 

[Indika]

Going for coal plants is ok, even germany gets 25% of the power by using lignite. But the worrying cause should be sovereign guarantee. Long time back india entered into agreement with Enron to buy power from its operated plant. Over a period of time the power generated become way too costly and govt stopped buying power. It ended up in severe crisis.

 

[fjavaid]

Yes, that is a fair comment. However, the project remains on shaky grounds given the basic setup.

Shaky ground, previous history ....y such hate towards the project ...do u think all 6 -7 banks approved 820Mil in air, without any back ground or any profit return calculations ....... no bank in the world not even our local bank will approve a single penny with out proper EIA n profit calcs .....for once try to think without any hate towards any person or history ...

 

[PakSword]

Rest of the world is moving on from coal and we are getting into it

KP Government is moving in the right direction towards self sufficiency. I have heard that wind power is also being considered in Sindh and Balochistan. Solar power will achieve 1000 MW by the end of 2016.

The deficiency should be covered by coal. We should not produce more than 15-20% from coal as it will be devastating for environment. But if we fail in using renewable sources, I don't mind going to coal for up to 75% of the production. In that case we need a billion tree Tsunami project in Sindh and another one in Punjab.

 

[VCheng]

Shaky ground, previous history ....y such hate towards the project ...do u think all 6 -7 banks approved 820Mil in air, without any back ground or any profit return calculations ....... no bank in the world not even our local bank will approve a single penny with out proper EIA n profit calcs .....for once try to think without any hate towards any person or history ...

The banks loaning this money were clever: the project was so shaky that it needed sovereign guarantees to make the loans possible. That is a fact, not hatred.

Goal gasification in situ may provide a favorable solution.

Why do you insist on digging yourself deeper in BS? Just how well has Dr. Mubarikmand's UCG project worked out in Thar so far? The rest of your diatribe is similarly useless in context.

 

[Lavrentiy]

Shaky ground, previous history ....y such hate towards the project ...do u think all 6 -7 banks approved 820Mil in air, without any back ground or any profit return calculations ....... no bank in the world not even our local bank will approve a single penny with out proper EIA n profit calcs .....for once try to think without any hate towards any person or history ...

Banks make lending decisions more on the basis of guarantees and quality of collateral and less on NPV or IRR of a project.
Project feasibility can go to hell if a good collateral is offered along with a higher mark-up. I know of countless examples of loans being given to nearly bankrupt entities.

Most of the bankers don't really give a f**k about risk management principles anyway.

Syed sb,

You are right. Forget about Dr Mubarikmand, UGC is still pretty much experimental as of now globally. Plus, it has all the dangers typically associated with shale gas (contamination of water et al)- in fact because UG coal reserves are more superficial compared to shale rocks, the danger if any cud be even worse.

Regards

Dr. Samar Mubarik Mand was actually interested in getting a huge chunk of money as his retirement benefit. His bull crap about underground coal gasification was just an attempt at usurping some public money.

You gota feel for him though. While Dr. Abdul Qadeer made millions from the nuclear black market, he only had his pesky little pension to live on.

 

[Bilal.]

Yes, but Pakistan has a particularly bad record for such projects. Besides, how many loaners get sovereign guarantees to assure they get their money back?

I am glad that we have made progress to from mirage and not gonna happen to shaky grounds. I am sure with each encouraging milestone we shall slowly make progress to more positive attitude. All in all good progress.

 

[VCheng]

I am glad that we have made progress to from mirage and not gonna happen to shaky grounds. I am sure with each encouraging milestone we shall slowly make progress to more positive attitude. All in all good progress.

I have wished such a process good luck all along, but I will remain skeptical until actual results, not claims. Thar coal remains a mirage, but good luck in chasing it down.

As an example, please see this BS:

Cheap, Abundant Electricity From Thar Coal to End Load Shedding

 

[Bilal.]

I have wished such a process good luck all along, but I will remain skeptical until actual results, not claims. Thar coal remains a mirage, but good luck in chasing it down.

As an example, please see this BS:

Cheap, Abundant Electricity From Thar Coal to End Load Shedding

Project under progress =/= mirage

 

[VCheng]

Project under progress =/= mirage

Project planned on faulty assumptions = mirage.